My Big Fat Bloated Holiday Eatings

Posted on Jan.4,2011

This will be a recipe-sparse and photo-intense overview of some of the things I got to eat over the holidays. First, we can start with the Christmas birdie.

I’d initially taken a giant pile of photos of the process of making this dead bird into a cooked bird, but at some point I apparently decided that cooking turkey the way pretty much everyone else cooks turkey (minus those deep fryin’ aficionados, of course) just isn’t that interesting. I even tried to season it all delicious-like, with a dry rub of seasonings, but as I failed to read the part of the directions that mentioned rubbing said dry rub *under* the skin and not *over* the skin, it didn’t really have much of an impact on the turkey’s flavor. I bet the skin was tasty though. Well, for people that actually find bird skin appetizing, and as I and my fellow turkey-eaters that day all find the idea of eating turkey skin mildly repulsive, the world will never know. Alas!

Getting a good turkey is tricky. I’ve eaten turkeys that were far too greasy, but this turkey was not nearly greasy enough. It was still tasty and turkey-like, but it’s drippings were not nearly as drippy as they should have been, and it’s meat was a bit dry, something that a little extra grease would have cured. Then again, if you buy a super-discounted bird in the sale bucket at Walmart, you run the risk of injected sodium overkill, along with the “Wow, this turkey is super greasy!” issue. So if free range organic turkeys who frolic amongst the grasses aren’t greasy enough, and a turkey raised in a box who sat on it’s little turkey recliner and gave itself sodium insulin injections all day is too greasy and salty, what’s the middle ground? Going to Kentucky and shooting my own? Finding a turkey that hits the gym on occasion but still gets fast food on a regular basis? It’s a tough call, really.

So every year we chronicle how much chocolate we receive from people. I love asking for food for Christmas because I like eating things and I like gifts that will go away eventually and not clutter up my living space. Apparently cluttering up my kitchen for awhile is OK, and I suppose that, given how much chocolate we get, cluttering up my abdomen is more or less inevitable.

There was a strong showing of cocoa mix this year – which works out, as I have an excess of teeny marshmallows that must be dealt with in some manner or another. The giant crispy thing in the middle was my visionary gift for Drew, who’s ingredients were purchased a bit before I remembered the chocolate gluttony that would inevitably be given to us by others. Normally something that chocolaty and crispy would be gone in 48 hours, tops, but it’s nearing the end of Week 2 at this point. Quite impressive! On a related note, chocolate turtles are awesome, as well as Lindt chocolate, and we received both in excess this year.

Speaking of shooting delicious animals in Kentucky, we had the fortune to spend New Year’s in Louisville this year with about 30 of Drew’s relatives. These people have a rather strong obsession with a restaurant called Steak and Shake, a 1950’s diner style restaurant that serves burgers aplenty. These restaurants seem to be mostly a southern thing, as I’d never seen any in Virginia and they’re certainly not in Colorado. Whenever Drew is within 50 miles of one, we have to eat there.

The double steakburger with cheese seems more or less the default thing to get, and considering that plus fries is $3.99, my wallet is quite fine with this. The burger is pretty luscious, in that way that good greasy burgers should be. The fries are not my preferred fry sort, as I generally like them a bit fatter than shoestrings, but they’re still pretty satisfying.

We managed, in a 3 day weekend, to eat at Steak and Shake twice. Did I mention the cluttering of my abdomen already?

Not that eating at the house we were staying at that weekend necessarily helped. Junk food abounded, including homemade junk food!

What could possibly be tastier then eating delicious puppets? Drew’s cousin Abbie made these super cute cookie monster cupcakes using halves of chocolate chip cookies, large marshmallows sliced up, and chocolate chips for the pupils.

Anyhow, the holidays are officially over (though I’m still wearing Christmas socks, dangit!) so the time has come for me to blatantly ignore the ginormous pile of chocolate sitting in the cabinet and pay attention to the pile of vegetables that I desperately need to eat. Meaning I’ll eat a piece of cucumber with my dinner of cookies and turtles every night. Yum!

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